Jury tampering

Jury tampering is the crime of unduly attempting to influence the composition and/or decisions of a jury during the course of a trial.

The means by which this crime could be perpetrated can include attempting to discredit potential jurors to ensure they will not be selected for duty. Once selected, jurors could be bribed or intimidated to act in a certain manner on duty. It could also involve making unauthorized contact with them for the purpose of introducing prohibited outside information and then arguing for a mistrial.

George Pape, a jury foreman in a 1987 trial of John Gotti, sought out Gotti's underlings, who agreed to pay him $75,000 in exchange for a not guilty vote. Pape was later convicted of jury tampering and sentenced to three years imprisonment.

In 2007, an attempt to bribe a juror in a case investigating cigarette smuggling in Northern Ireland led to the retrial being heard by a judge sitting alone, the first such ruling.[8]

In Season 2 Episode 10 of Hot in Cleveland Elka Ostrovsky tampered with Juror No. 8 but he forgot and she was said to be guilty

In the ITV drama The Jury a juror, Paul, is brought evidence by a former jury member on the case (the case is in retrial) she turns out to not be a jury member as she claimed and is the victim's sister.

In The Sopranos, Corrado Soprano Jr. persuades a single juror not to deliver a guilty verdict against him by hiring someone to find him and threaten the safety of his family.

In the final episode of Series 2 of Sherlock, the primary antagonist, Moriarty blackmails jury members during a court case by hacking into their hotel television systems to threaten their families, an example of jury tampering.